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Finishing her song, she drank the "opening cup," after which she added: "the delicate peach-blossom," and thus complied with the exigencies of the rule. Next came Hsueeh P'an. "Is it for me to speak now?" Hsueeh P'an asked. "A maiden is sad..." But a long time elapsed after these words were uttered and yet nothing further was heard. "Sad for what?" Feng Tzu-ying laughingly asked.
"It isn't to be wondered at then," observed Pao-yue, "that when I went the other day, on the third and fourth, to a banquet at friend Shen's house, I didn't see you there. Yet I meant to have inquired about you; but I don't know how it slipped from my memory. Did you go alone, or did your venerable father accompany you?" "Of course, my father went," Tzu-ying replied, "so I had no help but to go.
As he cracked this joke, however, a young page came and announced that Mr. Feng had arrived. Pao-yue concluded that the new comer must be Feng Tzu-ying, the son of Feng T'ang, general with the prefix of Shen Wu." "Ask him in at once," Hsueeh P'an and his companions shouted with one voice.
The remainder were Wei Chi, the son of the earl of Chin Hsiang; Feng Tzu-ying, the son of a general, whose prefix was supernatural martial spirit; Ch'en Yeh-chuen, Wei Jo-lan and others, grandsons and sons of princes who could not be enumerated.
"We haven't," they remarked, "seen you for ever so long. Is your venerable father strong and hale?" "My father," rejoined Tzu-ying, "is, thanks to you, strong and hale; but my mother recently contracted a sudden chill and has been unwell for a couple of days." Hsueeh P'an discerned on his face a slight bluish wound.
Saying this, he pushed his way and was going off at once, when Hsueeh P'an interposed. "What you've said," he observed, "has put us more than ever on pins and needles. We cannot brook any delay. Who knows when you will ask us round; so better tell us, and thus avoid keeping people in suspense!" "The latest," rejoined Feng Tzu-ying, "in ten days; the earliest in eight."
"With whom have you again been boxing," he laughingly inquired, "that you've hung up this sign board?" "Since the occasion," laughed Feng Tzu-ying, "on which I wounded lieutenant-colonel Ch'ou's son, I've borne the lesson in mind, and never lost my temper. So how is it you say that I've again been boxing?
But barely were these words out of their mouths, than they realised that Feng Tzu-ying had already stepped in, talking and laughing as he approached. The company speedily rose from table and offered him a seat. "That's right!" smiled Feng Tzu-ying. "You don't go out of doors, but remain at home and go in for high fun!" Both Pao-yue and Hsueeh P'an put on a smile.
"He really isn't a man," rejoined Chia Chen, "accustomed to give much of his time to the practice of medicine, in order to earn rice for his support: and it's Feng Tzu-ying, who is so friendly with us, who is mainly to be thanked for succeeding, after ever so much trouble, in inducing him to come.
I'll take the lead and swallow a large cupful and put in force a new penalty; and any one of you who doesn't comply with it, will be mulcted in ten large cupfuls, in quick succession!" Speedily rising from the banquet, he poured the wine for the company. Feng Tzu-ying and the rest meanwhile exclaimed with one voice: "Quite right! quite right!"
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